Spinal surgery can be used to treat lower back pain. Treatment planning for spinal surgery, however, requires a clear understanding of the causes of lower back pain. Research has shown that there is a link between abnormal patterns of spinal motion and chronic lower back pain.
Previous attempts at quantifying spinal kinematics in vivo have either required a surgical intervention to place rigid tracking pins percutaneously into each vertebra, or have been limited to sagittal plane radiographs evaluated at discrete points in the flexion-extension cycle. For the development of a practical diagnostic tool, accurate three-dimensional kinematic measurements are required.
Methods based on two-dimensional imaging with conventional radiographic techniques do not provide adequate information about the motion patterns of the spine to identify appropriate candidates for treatment or to conduct meaningful follow-up evaluation. Furthermore, techniques that provide discrete snapshots of spinal motion may not capture the specific motion event responsible for pain.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,418,183 B1 relates to two-pass CT imaging, wherein a volume of a patient may be scanned with a first, full field-of-view scan to acquire first projection data. A smaller volume of the patient can be scanned with a second, restricted field-of-view scan to acquire second projection data. An estimate may be made of an amount of shift between the first projection data and the second projection data resulting from patient movement. The first projection data may be blended with the second projection data in accordance with the estimated amount of shift to estimate projections of the second scan.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,556,008 B2 and corresponding DE 100 29 585 A1 relate to a method for the operation of a magnetic resonance apparatus, wherein in a first examination of a subject, a first scout dataset of the subject may be produced and with reference to which at least one first slice of a subject to be imaged may be determined. A second scout dataset of the subject may be produced in at least one further examination of the subject temporally following the first examination. A change in position between the first and the second scout dataset may be identified, and at least one further slice of the subject to be imaged may be defined according to the identified positional change. The further slice may exhibit a similar positioning within the subject with respect to the first slice.
One of the outgrowths of modern computed tomographic (CT or CAT) scanning instrumentation is a method for performing digital radiography that has many of the features of an ordinary radiographic study but in which each data point (“voxel” or small rectangular portion of the painting) is recorded in a discrete, finite manner. This technique is often called the “scout view.” The method may consist of placing the x-ray tube and detector assembly in such a position that the painting may be moved linearly through the x-ray beam. As the painting is moved, data from the collector array is collected by the computer and the image of the painting is thus stored in computer memory for subsequent manipulation and display. The collected image, with or without digital processing, may be displayed on a video monitor. In this image, the intensity of each individual point (“pixel”) in the image may be proportional to the quantity of x-rays passing through the corresponding point in the painting.